The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity

We would like to commend the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity.

The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity “You are not alone” message:

So, 1 in 5 people have dyslexia. It crosses racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. You are part of a community of successful people who overcame dyslexia.

Dyslexia Declaration of Rights for Yale students:

1)    Accurate Diagnosis:  Dyslexia students and or dysgraphia students (those who have a suspected area of disability) are entitled to an assessment, regardless of whether they are in a public, private, or charter school.

2)    Use the Word Dyslexia: Schools must use the word “dyslexia” so that proper diagnosis and evidence-based instruction and intervention can be applied.

3)    Evidence-based Instructions: All students deserve to have a written plan of action from the school specifying the evidence-based intervention, frequency, and measurable objectives. The plan must be a consensus between parents and teachers. 

4)    Accommodations: Accommodations must be provided to ensure that the students’ abilities, not their disabilities, are being assessed. Examples: extra time on tests, speech-to-text or text-to-speech technology, foreign language waiver or alternative.

5)    Dyslexia-Friendly Environment: A supportive environment that promotes educational and professional progress must be provided to enable dyslexic individuals to flourish to their full potential.

Ghotit commends Yale and wishes other educational institutions to adopt Yale’s level of commitment to dyslexic student body.

For more info on Yale Dyslexia & Creativity forum

So, You Are Dyslexic: a Slow Reader and an Out-of-the-Box Thinker.

So you are dyslexic. A slow reader and an Out-of-the-Box Thinker.
(Slogan taken from Yale University)

I know the feeling. I am too one of those guys.
I was diagnosed as a Dyslexic as a young child.
I struggled in school – probably would not have graduated without the support of my parents.
I struggled in college – usually by sitting in class and listening to the lectures without writing any notes. (I did marry the girl next to me who wrote the notes).
I had difficulties maintaining a 9-to-5 job – that is why I started Ghotit, my own business with a great partner called Robert, to provide dyslexics just like me with an awesome assistive writing solution…
I am still a slow reader- though I love and slowly read any non-fiction book I can get my hands on… And I like to think of myself as an Out-of-the-Box Thinker…
So are you dyslexic and an out-of-the-box thinker and slow-reader?

Communication in a Mobile World for people with Dyslexia

A lot has changed in the way we communicate. We have become the always-on generation.

Smartphones and tablets have changed the way we do business. Smartphones and tablets allow employees to be more responsive and provide immediate service.

Smartphones and tablets are today part of any educational setting, starting from elementary school all the way to college.

Today, if you are a person with dyslexia or dysgraphia, it is not enough to have assistant technology installed on your Windows or Macintosh laptop. In todays’ always-on connected world, you will often need to answer an immediate email or post on a social media directly from your Android smartphone or tablet.

If you are one of those “always on” people, then you need a writing assistive technology that will be available for you from any of your devices.

Ghotit offers an “Always on” solution. The “Always on” solution enables you to utilize Ghotit advanced writing algorithms from either your Windows or Macintosh laptop or desktop and then enjoy these same capabilities from any of your Android devices.

Ghotit Assistive Technology

Ghotit Real Writer & Reader software includes advanced writing and reading assistive technologies tailor-made for people with dyslexia and dysgraphia:

• Context and phonetic spell checker
• Grammar and punctuation checker
• Proofreader
• Reader that can read out any document
• Word prediction, contextual & phonetic
• Integrated word dictionary US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African dictionaries

Google HR Boss Says 58% Of Resumes Get Trashed Because Of One Spelling Mistake.

Google HR boss Laszlo Bock likes to cite a startling figure: 58% of resumes have typos.

“Typos are deadly because employers interpret them as a lack of detail-orientation, as a failure to care about quality,” he says.

For Google — a company that sees 50,000 resumes a week — the typo is one of five resume mistakes that will immediately land yours in the “no” pile.

 

Yet the mistake doesn’t stem from laziness, Bock says, but obsessiveness.

“People who tweak their resumes the most carefully can be especially vulnerable to this kind of error,” he says, “because they often result from going back again and again to fine tune your resume just one last time.”

According to cognitive science, our vulnerability to typos comes thanks to the way our brains store information.

University of Sheffield psychologist Tom Stafford explained how it happens to Wired:

“When you’re writing, you’re trying to convey meaning. It’s a very high level task,” [Stafford] said.

As with all high level tasks, your brain generalizes simple, component parts (like turning letters into words and words into sentences) so it can focus on more complex tasks (like combining sentences into complex ideas).

“We don’t catch every detail, we’re not like computers or NSA databases,” said Stafford. “Rather, we take in sensory information and combine it with what we expect, and we extract meaning.”

This shortcutting is part of a cognitive process called generalization, one of your mind’s tricks for sorting through data.

When you set out to drive to your buddy’s house but end up pulling into your parking lot at work, you’ve experienced generalization firsthand — rather than actually evaluating the path you’re taking, you cruise along on autopilot since the drive to work feel familiar and easy. And since it feels familiar and easy, your brain thinks it’s also right path, even if you end up pulling up to the wrong parking spot.

It’s the same case with editing text, even if a text as crucial to your career as your résumé. You’re intimately familiar with every corner of your résumé — given that you keep going back to perfect it. But that familiarity is in fact your enemy when it comes to proofreading.

To vanquish this enemy, we’re going to need some de-familiarization.

“Once you’ve learned something in a particular way,” Stafford says, “it’s hard to see the details without changing the visual form.”

Thus you have Bock’s recommendation.

“Read your résumé from bottom to top,” the HR boss says, since “reversing the normal order helps you focus on each line in isolation.”

Alternatively, you could make the text blurry — it increases reading comprehension for the same de-familiarizing reasons.

 

This blog was copied from Business Insider

 

 

How Does Dyslexia Impact on the Writing Process?

Originally published by the University of Leicester

It is often commented that the characteristics of dyslexic students’ written work might equally be found in the work of a non-dyslexic student. The problems with composition that students with dyslexia experience may be accompanied by difficulty with spelling and handwriting. Students may try to choose words they can spell rather than those they want to use. Those with short-term memory problems may have difficulty transcribing a mentally composed sentence, thus much backtracking is required which disrupts the flow of thought. When this is coupled with reading difficulties, it is easy to see why written tasks are laborious. The techniques of editing and refining demand extra stamina and time, and need to be done in separate stages. To be effective, this requires good pre-planning and time management. Paradoxically these may be the very skills that students with dyslexia may find particularly challenging.

Those students who are familiar with their own problems and are used to academic study are often highly disciplined to the task and start work on assignments as soon as they receive them. Others will need some explicit help in pacing themselves and in the understanding of the separate stages of the writing process. It is also worth noting that many of the errors will not be picked up by a standard spell checker or, in some cases, by the student’s proof reading.

In any event, it is likely that the final outcome of the work presented may not reflect the time and effort that has gone into its preparation.

When giving feedbacks to students, it may be useful to bear the following points in mind:

  • students need to understand why they have gained or lost marks and if spelling, punctuation and grammar are considered an essential part of the brief, it is important to let them know this in advance;
  • prompt, legible and detailed feedback is especially helpful. Dyslexic students need encouragement on what they have achieved and explicit information about how they can improve their work;
  • feedback about exam performance is as important as feedback after coursework submission; it helps tutors and students to ascertain the reasons for possible low marks or failure. It is important for all students with a SpLD to realise the extent to which low marks are due to a lack of detailed knowledge or to an inability to reflect their knowledge adequately in writing;
  • it is helpful to identify the type (what kinds) of errors that have been made in the work, particularly if these can be pointed out in detail in a small section. Providing correct spellings of subject specific words is very useful;
  • in addition a common perception is that dyslexic students have fluency in oral language but difficulty with written language. However some dyslexic students also experience spoken language difficulties, such as word finding, hesitations, mispronunciations and incomplete sentences. This should be taken into account when assessing oral presentations.

Variations in processing difficulties and the effects of secondary factors, such as environment and self-esteem, contribute significantly to the individual profile. Many students may have developed excellent ‘compensation’ strategies.

Emphasis is usually given to problems with written work. However, writing is only one aspect of the range of difficulties reported by students. These can include some or all of the following:

  • listening and taking notes in a lecture; this is why many students are provided with digital recorders and microphones so that they can concentrate on listening and understanding rather than writing. In some cases students may also have a note-taker;
  • limitations in working memory, resulting in the need to go over texts many times to remember and understand them; this is one of the reasons why extra time is given in examinations;
  • handwriting which may be extremely slow, lacking automaticity, which contributes to spelling errors and/or word omissions;
  • pronunciation of polysyllabic and/or unfamiliar words;
  • slow speed of reading; word omissions, problems making sense of print without substantial re-reading; this is another reason why extra time may be given in exams;
  • difficulties in reading aloud;
  • tendency to misinterpret or miscopy complex written or spoken instructions;
  • word recall difficulties (spoken and written); often giving the appearance of immature language in relation to complexity of ideas;
  • estimating time, both in managing deadlines and for daily routines;
  • left/right confusion, leading to orientation difficulties, e.g. in the library;
  • fatigue as a result of the extra concentration and energy needed to meet both the literacy and non-literacy requirements of the HE environment;
  • difficulties with basic maths and statistics; this particularly affects students who encounter mathematical content within a non-mathematical discipline.

Dyslexia is the most common specific learning difficulty in HE but you may meet students who are dyspraxic, dyscalculic or who also have a pervasive developmental disorder such as Asperger syndrome or autism. Additionally, some students will have a combination of these difficulties and disabilities.

 

Dyslexia Literacy Boosted by Synergy of Different Technologies

The Ghotit two-step correction process aims to help people with dyslexia who want to increase their typing speed while still producing error-free text.

It’s known that the best text correction for people with dyslexia is done by human proofreading. However, if we adopt this approach, those with dyslexia will never gain their writing independence.

There are three major assistive technologies that enable writing independence:

1. Spelling and grammar checkers
2. Word-prediction software
3. Dictation software (speech to text)

Each one of these technologies has its own pros and cons. Spelling and grammar correction, if designed for people with dyslexia and dysgraphia, i.e. Ghotit Real Writer & Reader, corrects spelling and grammar errors including punctuation and real-word (misused words) errors. This technology achieves the best results as it is the closest to the human corrections process: it analyzes the entire text, “understands it”, and then corrects with knowledge of the entire context.

Unfortunately, for many people their writing problems start with the very typing of the text. Their typing is extremely slow. Spelling and grammar correction technology cannot help with these typing issues. Word-prediction and Dictation technologies were designed in part to overcome this “typing limitation”, and they are very helpful in enabling a user to type text at a quicker pace.

However, even using the best Word-Prediction or Dictation solutions, the texts written or dictated are known to contain the following types of errors:

1. Misused words (real-words spelled correctly but placed out of context);
2. Grammar errors;
3. Lack of appropriate punctuation and punctuation errors.

The reason for this partial success is because Word-Predictors and Dictation software have the knowledge of only what was “just written” or “just said”. They are not aware to the context of the full sentence or the next words of the written or spoken phrase.

Some examples:

By the most advanced products.  -> Buy the most advanced products.
Buy the way, just go forward. -> By the way, just go forward.

There is a whole in the ground. -> There is a hole in the ground.
There is a hole new world behind. -> There is a whole new world behind.

In the above examples, the word prediction and dictation solutions will recommend misused words for the currently written word. The reason is that these technologies do not have visibility to any of the words written following this current word.

 
Ghotit recommended methodology for correcting text for people that have typing challenges

1. Create your text by using your favorite Word-Prediction or Dictation software (you can use Ghotit Quick-Spell Word-Prediction sold as a part of Ghotit Real Writer & Reader 6)
2. Next, correct the text you created by using Ghotit phonetic and context speller and grammar corrector.

Following this two-step process, the user will be able to type quickly while producing text that is free from spelling, misused words, grammar, and punctuation errors.

Dyslexia symptoms, causes and types of dyslexia

By Melody Cleo

Dyslexia symptoms, causes and types of dyslexia:

Dyslexia refers to a learning disability which is common in children. This disorder makes children find it difficult to write, read spell and sometimes even experience hindrance in speaking. Although the severity of this disorder can range from being mild to severe it can be treated successfully with timely intervention. In many cases owing to the absence of any obvious symptoms Dyslexia goes undetected in many children during their early years. The difficulty faced by such children in being able to learn easily often makes them go through extreme degree of frustration and may show visible signs of being depressed and suffer from low self-esteem.

The Symptoms of Dyslexia:

1. the most common symptom of Dyslexia in a child is his tendency to write numbers and letters in a reversed fashion. While such reversals are quite common in children up to the age of eight, if this problem persists then the child should be tested for Dyslexia.

2. Inability to copy from the book or the board in the classroom is also suggestive of a problem and can be a symptom of Dyslexia.

3. Disorganized writing and failure to be able to retain content of a text is also suggestive of Dyslexia.

4.While Dyslexia is primarily a learning disorder children suffering from this condition may also face significant difficulty in outdoor activities owing to their inability to judge left or right , speed of a moving object or even determining special relationships.

5. Another common symptom of Dyslexia is auditory difficulty. A child suffering from this disorder experiences difficulty in following multiple commands or may even fail to recollect something heard clearly. They also experience issues in being able to express their thoughts clearly through words.

6. One of the most pronounced symptom of Dyslexia is that a child gets confused by words, letters, numbers, sequence and verbal explanation.

7. Apart from the above academic symptoms a child suffering from Dyslexia also exhibits some emotional symptoms like depression, withdrawal symptoms, and low levels of self-confidence and lack of motivation.

Causes and types of Dyslexia:

The following are the different types of Dyslexia which also explains what causes them.

1) Trauma Dyslexia – This type of Dyslexia is a rare scenario where a child suffers from the disorder owing to some injury or trauma in that part of the brain which controls writing and reading.

2) Primary Dyslexia – Primary Dyslexia refers to a kind of dysfunction of the cerebral cortex which is on the left side of the brain. This kind of disorder does not change with the advancement of age and is usually hereditary. Primary Dyslexia is more predominant in boys rather than girls.

3) Development of secondary Dyslexia – Secondary or Development Dyslexia is caused by hormonal development of the foetus in the early stage. This type of Dyslexia diminishes with age and even this is found more in boys than girls.

Dyslexia also hinders several functions like visual Dyslexia and Auditory Dyslexia .Visual Dyslexia leads to a child having difficulty in writing letters properly and often leading to letter reversals and inability to follow the correct sequence while writing. Auditory Dyslexia on the other hand is characterized by the child having difficulty in perceiving the sound of the letters or words correctly.

Hence these are the causes and symptoms of Dyslexia which if identified in children should always be taken seriously. It is important to note that if treated early Dyslexia can be cured easily and it saves the child from going through the unnecessary stress of being unable to go through the learning tasks unlike their peers. Apart from being able to identify the correct time when one should seek medical intervention it is also important to be able to bear the financial expenses of the treatment.

Author Bio:

Melody Cleo is a passionate blogger from Manchester, UK. In her free time, she writes articles on various topics such as technology, gadgets, travel…etc. As of now she is focusing on EHIC, which provides health insurance services for the European people.

Personal Note:

As a life long dyslexic and the founded Ghotit, I started to ask myself is it really important to the individual dyslexic his classification in order to help him study and work?

Ashton Kutcher & Dyslexia?

So you are probably asking, what, is Ashton Kutcher a dyslexic? Is he too a member of the long list of famous celebrities with dyslexia? (e.g. Tom Cruise, Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Turner, Cher etc.) … The answer is NO.
I recently viewed the speech that Ashton Kutcher gave in Teen Choice Awards of 2013:

So what does Ashton’s inspiring speech have to do with Dyslexia?
The speech promoted 3 main points, all 100% applicable for people with dyslexia:
– “Opportunity looks a lot like hard work” –this is true to the general population, but even more so to dyslexics. To succeed, dyslexics need to work extra hard to find their opportunities for success.
– “The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous” – Dyslexics usually have an above average IQ. Use these smarts to succeed and become a sexy dyslexic.
– “ Everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own thing, you can build your own life that other people can live in.” – Dyslexics are usually creative. They won’t necessarily succeed in a 9-to-5 office job. But they can leverage their creativity to build their own unique business and life…

Thanks Ashton for a great speech.